A-list star’s shocking history exposed

He’s one of Hollywood’s most divisive stars, and now Joaquin Phoenix’s torrid history with Hollywood execs has been revealed.

Joaquin Phoenix has wreaked havoc in Hollywood after pulling out of a movie just days before it was due to film, and now it’s been revealed it’s part of a troubling pattern for the controversial star.

Phoenix hit headlines last week after it was revealed he had quit director Todd Haynes gay romantic drama, leaving an entire crew unpaid and build sets to go unused.

Insiders claimed he got cold feet due to the film’s explicit gay sex scenes, despite the fact he was the one who came up with the screenplay, and the movie’s producers swiftly hit out publicly.

US actor Joaquin Phoenix has been exposed for having a history of trying to quit movies. Photo: OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP.

It’s now been revealed that Phoenix, known for his bizarre antics, has tried to quit multiple projects shortly before they were due to go ahead.

Two sources told The Hollywood Reporter that he threatened to leave Ridley Scott’s Napoleon unless his The Master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson was brought in to do rewrites.

Then in 2019, he attempted to back out of The Joker, arguably the biggest role of his career, last minute.

He did it again in 2021, with Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, and again in 2023, with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. But in those cases, Phoenix ultimately settled down and the movies ended up getting made.

Sadly, he might have wished he had kept to his word and quit the latter, considering his performance as the historical icon was labelled “awful” by critics and even fellow actor Brian Cox, who publicly stated he thought the actor was “truly terrible” in the movie.

Phoenix reportedly got cold feet about taking part in gay sex scenes. Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP.

However, Phoenix isn’t the first actor to back out of a movie and spark mayhem.

Bruce Willis infamously quit the never-finished Disney film Broadway Brawler mid-production.

Facing legal action as a result, he made a deal with Disney to film three movies that were below his market rate. However, it turns out the situation worked out in everyone’s favour when two of those films ended up being hits mega-hits; Armageddon and The Sixth Sense.

In 1993, a court found that Kim Basinger breached a verbal contract to star in the Main Line Pictures film Boxing Helena, with Basinger later ordered to pay the company at least $8.92 million in damages.